Fab Food Expo show inaugurated

(ANSA) - Rome, May 29 - The 'Fab Food' exhibit has opened at Milan Expo 2015 to focus on a key contemporary challenge, nourishing the planet in a sustainable way, according to Giorgio Squinzi, president of large employers' group Confindustria organizing the event. Squinzi, a special ambassador of the world's fair, inaugurated the exhibit on Thursday, the day in which the lobby group was holding its annual assembly on the sidelines of the Universal Exposition.
    The show 'Fab Food - The factory of Italian taste' showcases high-quality Italian food production and will be open throughout the duration of the world's fair, which wraps up on October 31 and runs under the banner 'Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life'.
    On Thursday, Squinzi said the exhibit vied "to confront one of the key challenges of our era - nourishing the planet in a sustainable way - a challenge that our industrial culture must face by providing innovative answers".
    The food-themed Expo focuses on promoting sustainable nutrition while fighting world hunger with the objective of feeding nine billion people by 2050.
    The interactive exhibit, which was also inaugurated by Expo President Diana Bracco and Economic Development Minister Federica Guidi, is set across a two-storey pavilion inside the Italian pavilion.
    Its aim is to enable Expo visitors to see how high-quality and safe products with accessible prices can be produced in a sustainable way through innovation and industrial technology.
    The show is curated by the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan with the co-sponsorship of the health ministry and 10 associations including Italian food producers' association Federalimentare.
    While concentrating on the fight against world hunger and sustainable nutrition, Expo is also celebrating global culinary cultures - providing a unique opportunity for Italy to promote its food products of excellence with as many as 25 million visitors expected at the world's fair.
    Meanwhile on Thursday Lebanon inaugurated its pavilion at Expo.
    The world's fair has registered the participation of a record 140 countries through single-nation pavilions and clusters showcasing products and geographical areas.
    In particular, the Lebanese pavilion is located inside the Bio-Mediterranean Cluster and will present local products of excellence and culinary specialties.
    Decorated with the colors of the national flag - white, red and green - it features on a wall the words of Lebanese poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), "if Lebanon were not my country, I would have chosen Lebanon for Homeland".
    And in another development this week, the controversial exhibit created by Oscar-winning set designer Dante Ferretti was partially completed.
    Three out of eight stations of a reproduction of Ferretti's 'market' have been erected in Expo's Decumana, one of two main thoroughfares that cross the fair.
    Last month, Ferretti withdrew his name from the project and warned the Expo company to execute it only partially due to delays in construction that would not have permitted completion in time for the opening of the Universal Exposition on May 1.
    Ferretti subsequently returned to the project after former Italian president Giorgio Napolitano stepped in to mediate. Expo Commissioner Giuseppe Sala said this week that the exhibit will be ready on June 2 and that Premier Matteo Renzi will attend the inauguration.